Pulse episode 2 recap: storm surge

The hurricane is bearing down on Maguire and tension is at an all-time high amongst the staff. Here’s your Pulse episode 2 recap.

Paramedics Nia (Ash Santos) and Shannon (Kathryn Smith-McGlynn) make a sweep through the neighborhood as people are being urged to shelter in place ahead of the hurricane. Shannon teases Nia for having a crush on Tom Cole (Jack Bannon), but they’re interrupted by a woman calling for help after a tree fell on her house, trapping her kids.

Danny (Willa Fitzgerald) tells Xander (Colin Woodell) she’s not going to back down because of the awkward situation. Xander presses Danny for information about how she’s handling the extra patients, but she says she’s got it all under control, using the conference room as an overflow for patients. When he asks where the staff will sleep, she has no answer yet.

Camila (Daniela Nieves) tells Elijah (Jessie T. Usher) it must be awful for Danny to have to work with the person she filed a complaint against. Elijah says Xander’s the “hero” and Danny’s “humiliated,” but Tom reminds him he’s the one who ratted Danny out to Natalie (Justina Machado) because he was upset about losing the position. Camila says Xander could be a “perv,” but Sophie says Danny could be a liar. Tom doesn't believe Xander is a perv, but now Elijah sticks up for Danny. Luis (Arturo del Puerto) tells them to get to work.

Danny asks Camila to find a place the staff can sleep. When Camila asks about the “on call rooms,” Danny tells her to "unlearn" what she's seen on Grey’s Anatomy. Danny gets pulled as Luis tells her that house collapse victims are coming in and Natalie wants to see her upstairs.

Best bathrooms

Suddenly the ER is being flooded by pregnant women, as Harper (Jessy Yates) explains everyone due to give birth is being called in as a precaution. She teases Danny about her phobia, then mentions she’s worried because their father isn’t picking up his phone.

Upstairs, Vero (Sophia Torres) is on a ventilator with Natalie beside her. When Natalie spots a tattoo on Vero’s ankle, she shakes her head. Danny walks in and Natalie asks for an update. Danny says the hospital is full and almost the entire staff is there. Natalie, who worries about the power supply, tells her to lean on Xander. When Xander walks in, Natalie dismisses Danny.

Shannon leads the house collapse kids inside while Nia is wheeled in with a metal bar sticking out of her stomach. She’ll never get over it if Tom ends up being the one to save her life. The kids’ parents want to stay with the kids but the wife doesn’t want the husband near her. Harper tends to the little boy while Danny and Elijah help his sister. Xander offers his advice on a procedure, which leads to an argument between them until Elijah tells Xander to back off. Ultimately Danny does it his way and it works perfectly.

Danny has a flashback to one year prior. She’s out partying with the staff to welcome Xander. They talk about the best places in the hospital to get away from people. Danny gets a drink and Xander follows her to the bar. She says everyone knows his parents are at the top of the hospital’s donor wall, but Xander insists he wants to be his own person. He asks where she goes to be alone in the hospital? She proposes a deal: if he can get the bartender’s attention, she’ll tell him, but if she does, then she’ll get the first good trauma the next day.

In the present, Danny heads to the bathroom in radiology. Someone is in there already and she asks Danny to leave.

Much obliged

Tom checks Nia’s vitals while quizzing Sophie about the case. When Nia answers his questions instead, she accuses him of being a bad teacher and only wanting to tell Sophie when she’s wrong. He asks Nurse Cass (Jessica Rothe) to call the OR but they’re slammed; Cass instead asks about the patient he’s been flirting with and reminds him about the environment they’re working in thanks to the accusations. He jokes she can’t get rid of him so easily.

Natalie tells Ruben they should wean Vero off the ventilator. He reminds her that he’s the doctor and she’s the mother. She’s upset she didn’t know Vero was on the bus or that she had a tattoo. Ruben assures her Vero will pull through this, giving her a hug.

Danny asks the kids’ mother if she wants her husband. The woman says he cheated on her and she was about to tell him to leave but then the house collapsed. Danny says she would have saved herself, but the woman still loves him.

In the past, Xander offers Danny a trauma involving swimmers. The twist is that they have to take a helicopter to get to them.

Camila tells Sophie she can’t find a place that fits Danny’s requirements. Sophie warns her to never make promises to the Chief Resident. Camila apologizes profusely to Danny, but Danny tells her not to apologize and instead spots the gift shop. She uses a fire extinguisher to smash the window, then she tells Camila to get housekeeping to bring up some beds. Just then the power goes out.

When Danny heads back into the ER, she sees Xander talking to the nurses. He tells everyone even though they're running on one generator, they’re staying open and they’ll get through this. Danny is furious he kept the information from her. She storms upstairs and tells Natalie to give the job to Elijah.

In the past, Xander and Danny land on the beach and head to the victims. Danny takes a woman’s vitals and comes up with a treatment plan, making Xander smile. Soon the patient is stable and ready to be moved. He asks Danny if she’d like to have dinner with him? She awkwardly agrees, but doesn’t want either one of them to feel obliged.

Flying solo

Back in the present, Danny tries her father again. He doesn’t answer. As she heads into the stairwell she runs into Xander, who asks if he should start defending himself and share the details of what happened. She counters she could share details, too, including why he had to leave his previous hospital.

Sophie gives Tom an update on Nia, who's struggling while they wait for an OR to open up. Tom goes to the OR and urges Ruben to help. Ruben says she must be special if he’s interrupting. Tom offers to get Nia ready for surgery, but Ruben relents and will get her prepped, but he makes Tom repeat the instructions to make it clear. Tom gives Nia the update, but she's scared without her family there. Tom says he’s going to be with her.

Outside, the wind howls violently. Danny returns to the bathroom and finds the woman is still in there. Danny spots fluid on the ground and realizes the moaning woman is in labor. As much as Danny doesn’t want to do it, she has to help her.

She has a flashback to when she and Xander returned to the ER from their beach trip. Xander said she wasn’t “essential,” which deeply hurt her. In the present, she tells an orderly outside the bathroom that they have a “code stork” and then she returns to the stall and starts helps the woman, Mariana, deliver the baby.

Tom starts Nia's procedure as instructed. He asks Sophie questions and offers praise, but he makes a mistake and suddenly Nia starts bleeding out. Sophie wants to get Ruben but Tom pulls the metal out so he can find the source of the bleeding. Ruben arrives in the OR and finds the source of the bleed, continuing with the surgery. He calls Tom over to tell him that he did a good job “flying solo.”

Tom walks out of the OR and gets a text from Cass, who wants to meet him in room 712. When he arrives he finds her in the empty bed waiting for him.

The other side

Natalie tells Ruben she wants to extubate Vero because the ventilator could run out of battery power and the power could go out at any time. But he believes they have time.

Elijah comes into the bathroom with fresh scrubs for Danny. They head to the lobby and see Camila keeping order in the gift shop. Elijah says Danny had his back for three years and he’s sorry about going to Natalie. He wants her to know he believes her. She's worried everyone is going to take Xander’s side and they’re all going to hate her, she doesn’t want them to hate Elijah, too. “Forget those people,” he says.

In the past, Xander finds Danny in the gift shop and realizes it’s her secret spot. He can see she’s upset he kicked her out of the trauma. She thinks he kicked her out because she refused dinner and she knows he has power and can do anything to her career. He can’t believe she thinks he’s “that guy.” He wonders if she would have wanted him to keep her in the trauma room because she’s his favorite, and he adds that he wished they could’ve stayed longer on the beach. He moves close, about to kiss her, but she tells him he shouldn’t say that to her. He tells her she shouldn’t be in the gift shop while she’s on shift. Back in the present, the power flickers and Danny runs out of the lobby.

When the lights flicker, Natalie tells the nurse to start lowering Vero’s sedatives. The nurse wants to get Ruben’s approval, but Natalie insists.

Danny runs out onto the roof. They’re in the eye of the hurricane and the sky is clear and calm. Xander is there, too. He saw she made up with Elijah, calling it a good move because he’s a good ally. He also warns her the problem with being in the eye of the hurricane is that everything reverses on the other side.

All episodes of Pulse are streaming now on Netflix.